


One More Time With Feeling

by simplyprologue



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: 2.07 AU, Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurricane Sandy, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, RST
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-14
Updated: 2014-03-14
Packaged: 2018-01-15 18:18:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1314535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyprologue/pseuds/simplyprologue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“I had your name google alerted,” he winds up saying, the words out of his mouth before he can even think about how unretractable they are. And then continues, because they demand context, and Mac deserves more than how he jerked her around with the voicemail.</i> </p><p>Alternate ending to my "Red Team III" fic, <i>The Sadder But Wiser Girl</i>. Instead of holding back, Will tells Mac what's going on inside his head, and it ends all the better for the both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One More Time With Feeling

**Author's Note:**

> **A/N:** So my conversation with Meg, while I was writing _The Sadder But Wiser Girl_ essentially went like this:
> 
> MEG: So is this an AU?  
> ME: No.  
> MEG: So no sex?  
> ME: No.  
> MEG: Unacceptable.
> 
> And then I sighed and wrote her an AU of a fic, because I love her. Goes off the rails somewhere near the bottom third of the fic, if you want to reread that first (the italics at the top are the last lines in Sadder But Wiser before I pivot to RST).

_“Once CNN released the name of the reporter who had been attacked,” he does tell her, coaxing her head back down against his shoulder._

_The wind hastens against the glass again, high-pitched and loud, holding out for over a minute during which Mac just groans and buries her face in his shirt, pulling the sleeping bag up over her head._

_He keeps carding his fingers through her hair (that feels the same, smells the same, somehow, even though that shouldn’t make sense because he’s not stupid, no one uses the same shampoo for six years, so maybe it’s her perfume, MacKenzie’s always worn Fracas, like one of her aunts), trying to ignore that her weight on him makes the air mattress bearable, trying to ignore that Mac tends to make a lot of things bearable._

_(It’s 5 AM and a lot of thoughts are slipping through, unbidden.)_

_He needs to know that he can do the same for her. That he’s not just…_

“I had your name google alerted,” he winds up saying, the words out of his mouth before he can even think about how unretractable they are. And then continues, because they demand context, and Mac deserves more than how he jerked her around with the voicemail. “Sometimes. I didn’t, when it happened. Charlie wound up calling me into his office, and it must have been four or five days after, and…”

“Charlie called me,” she finishes, almost like a question. And then, even more hesitantly, if only because Will thinks that she isn’t sure if she wants the answer, “you were there?”

“You were on speaker.”

He doesn’t know why he says it; why he keeps making this worse. He’s going to get himself too far, let MacKenzie expect too much, let her down again.

Her voice is almost an octave higher when she speaks; high and muddled with emotion, hemmed-in tears, and it makes him want to get up, run away, do anything but this. “And you didn’t say anything?”

_Keep talking._

“I think I almost passed out.” He keeps combing his fingers through her hair, probably more of a comfort to him than to her, at this point, struggling to keep his voice louder than the hurricane outside, willing himself not to lose the confidence, the nerve, to do this now. Mac deserves this. And he… he deserves this, too. To have this, with her. “From relief. And then anger, because, as you know, I’m incapable of processing more than one emotion at a time, so—”

“Will.”

No, he can’t be interrupted; if she interrupts him, he’ll stop, and then Will thinks there’s no going back from this--

“I almost flew to Germany. To see you. I honestly was going to do it.” And then… and then he makes himself say it. “And then I froze, and then…”

“Will?”

“You own me,” he blurts out.

_What?_

“What?” she asks, voice now high and _confused as all fuck._

“I have no idea where I’m going with any of this.” And then, he thinks, he never read her emails and she never got the voicemail, thinks back to all their massive communication meltdowns, and he realizes… most of them are his fault. All of them, really, and if this going to ever get better between the two of them he has to trust her, what she says and to listen to him so Will makes himself just say what he’s thinking. “I don’t think I’m angry at you anymore. And I don’t want to punish you, and I know I probably hurt you anyway, since I… I’m sorry. And I want you know, that if Leona accepts our resignations—you’ve stayed here for three years and I have no right to ask you to stay any longer than you already have, but I just… I need more time.”

Actually, he’s terrified, because he thinks he might be ready, might be coming up on the edge of it, but he has absolutely no fucking experience with forgiveness and it’s been six years since he’s let anyone in who wasn’t Charlie ( _ha_ , or Nina, and she literally broke in through the front door) or who he hadn't paid $400 an hour.

_Keep going._

“It’s going to be you, MacKenzie. It’s always been you. And I know it’s on me, now, to—”

She leans up off his chest, and he thinks, distantly, that if it weren’t for the fact that it’s entirely pitch black she’d been looking him in the face. “Will, what are you saying?”

“I love you.” Okay, can’t take it back. Just keep going. “I never… I never stopped. I just… and listen to me, Genoa isn’t all your fault. We all fucked up. And with our—with us, I could have done a lot—it wasn’t all your fault.” Blindly, he reaches up and finds MacKenzie’s face, trailing the backs of his fingers down the slope of her cheek, skimming his fingertips along her jaw. Shaking, she clenches her fingers in his shirt, presses her elbows into the sides of his chest. He’d give anything to calm her down, to make it better. _Keep going._ “I trust you. Probably more than anyone else in the world. And that’s a lot more than _I love you_ to me, because—because—”

The problem’s never been with loving her.

God, no.

And the problem, recently, hasn’t all been her. Maybe it’s never been. Maybe the two of them were like Genoa.

A two-person institutional failure.

“I _know_ , honey,” she whispers forceful and gentle all at once, and he can feel her say it under his palm cradling her cheek, before he can hear the words in his ears.

“Yeah,” he manages to rasp out.

“We have time,” Mac reassures him, covering his hand, resting on her cheek, with one of her own, before laughing. “If things go the way we think they’re going to go, we’re going to have _a lot_ of time, actually.”

But he has to finish saying it. If he doesn’t now, he doesn’t know if he’s going to—

“I’m sorry I never read your emails.”

‘We _have time_ , Will,” she promises, certain and yet distraught, because while _time_ is certain what is between the two of them is now new and unsure and full of brittle truths that have been sheltered for too long, like an unexercised limb. And then, very calmly, like she’s has the time to think it over. “There’s no use in regretting what we’ve done at this point. Just, you know, take a lot of Xanax and try to move forward.”

She laughs again, the sound a bit water-logged.

And he has to know.

“Mac?”

“Yes?”

“Do you love me?”

“Are you—you’re actually an idiot,” she scoffs. Fondly, he thinks, but recoils all the same, until angrily she plows on. “Why do you think I sent myself into a warzone?”

Because she wanted to break up.

“To get away—”

The noise she makes is low and discontented, almost appalled.

“Because I hated myself,” Mac says, loudly. “I embedded so maybe something would happen to force me to change. Or get me killed. I don’t know. I didn’t really have a plan except either to work so hard that I didn’t have to think about how much I hated myself for what I’d done or to catch a bullet or to learn something and change.”

Her voice picks speed, and she’s off and spinning, and all he can do is fist his hand into the fabric of her blouse, anchor her to him, and listen. “But that’s not… how it works. I mean, I almost did catch a few bullets. I definitely caught a _knife_. Shrapnel, a few times.” Her voice falters, chin dropping, and he traces her cheekbone with his thumb, feeling a heavy weight sink into his gut. “I came home exhausted and in the middle of a nervous breakdown. That’s all that changed. I was still in love with you and I still hated myself.”

Will feels her cheek muscles twitch her mouth into a tiny smile and then he doesn’t know what to feel at all, terror and hope and love all swirling down until she holds on tighter, takes a breath, tries again to sort things through.

“Charlie got me into therapy and got me a job and three years later I hate myself less, made myself change a lot, still am incredibly sorry—but I’m still in love with you, you absolute moron. Do you really think I would put up with you if I didn’t?”

(Breathe, and one more time with feeling.

MacKenzie loves him. He loves MacKenzie. It’s a lot less simple than that, but now they’ve put a name to why they fight.

They just have to hold on, for a little while.)

“You love me?”

Faintly, he realizes how happy he sounds, and he turns the words over and over again in his head until they hold meaning, until they take shape into something tangible, MacKenzie-shaped under his hands, and she shakes her head, and he knows she’s laughing at him.

“I love you,” she confirms, giggling breathlessly.

“Can I kiss you?”

She’s still shaking, still upset, still anxious, and he doesn’t want to push her, if she’s too anxious, if she just wants to lay here they can just lay here, he’s old enough to know that it doesn’t have to be now, it doesn’t have to go fast, that they can say the words and do nothing at all.

But she keeps laughing, trying to quiet herself, still trembling.

He starts to laugh too, because this whole situation is absurd, the next counterbalance in the universe’s strange interpretation of fairness. Will wants to bottle up the madness and put it on a shelf behind his desk to keep and look at for when they resign next week, to remind himself.  

Still trying to tamp down on her giggles, she disentangles their legs, hooking one of hers over his hips and moving to straddle him. “You can do a whole lot more than—”

Shushing her, he slowly moves to turn them, bracing himself with one elbow while making sure her leg is securely around his waist with the other, rolling them so that she’s lying under him. And then carefully tugs the sleeping bag back to cover them while she trails the arches of her feet up and down his calves.

It’s foursomething AM and the power’s out and it’s been six years since he’s kissed MacKenzie and he’s going to do this _right_ , goddammit, now that the ticking clock has stopped and the storm outside is loud and no fucking joke, but they’re stuck in this together, in the dark.

And _god_ does he want to kiss her.

“This is very serious…” he murmurs in her ear, pressing his lips to the sensitive skin there, trying not to laugh when she squirms, any chance of it dying in his throat when she locks their hips together, wraps her arms under his shoulders.

It starts out as the idea of kissing; he traces her lips in the dark before lowering his mouth to hers. Softly, at first, more like an exchange of breath, until her fingers slide into his hair and he slants his mouth against hers, tracing her bottom lip with his tongue. Slowly, even still, and wetly, hands loosed on each other.

She exhales into him, fingers clenching into his shirt, hips beginning to rock absently. They’ve spent the past three years rebuilding a second nature, a dance of moves and countermoves and he’s desperate to relearn her like this, stroking his tongue along hers, her breasts pushing up against his chest.

They break apart for air and she encourages him to help her get his sweatshirt off her, tugging it up over her head and dropping it to the floor beside them.

“Mac?”

Shushing him, she puts his hands on the top button of her blouse, and he thinks he’d give almost anything to be able to see her face, but he knows if the power goes back on then it’s over, then they’re back to work, back to worrying about the Dantana suit and the end of their careers and the beginning of whatever this is, them, again.

_Will and Mac 2.0._

Still, he has to remind her. “With our luck, the power’s gonna come on halfway through, or Jim or someone is gonna decide to check up on you—”

“Seriously man,” Mac grumbles, leaning up to kiss him again. “Where’s your sense of adventure?”

He nips at her lower lip in retaliation. “Outside, where I’d like it to stay. Seriously, we’re doing this on an _air mattress?_ ”

“I reported from caves and holes in the ground,” she teases, arching up towards him when he strips her sleeves off her arms, and he takes the chance to slide his hands around to her back, fanning his fingers over the warm skin of her lower back. “Toughen up, McAvoy. Unless your knees are too—”

“My knees are _fine,_ thank you,” he assures her, sighing, aggrieved, before sliding his tongue back into her mouth when he thinks she means to continue on. One hand anchored under her head, in her hair, he reaches down with the other, pulling up the hem of her camisole to undo the button of her trousers, Lifting her hips, she starts pushing them down, hesitating when she gets them around her knees before deciding to kick them off all the way. When the wind kicks up, he trails a chain of kisses from her mouth to her ear, smoothing his hands up and down her bare thighs. “I want to see you.”

“We never really were lights-off people,” she agrees, a slight tremor in her voice.

Turning his head to gain access to the sensitive patch of skin behind her ear, he presses his mouth there and charts her hips and waist and back, not allowing even the illusion of urgency or haste. The wind howls outside, the rain hitting the windows in cold, half-frozen sheets, and when she clutches to him he slows, before pulling away entirely.

“You okay?”

He feels her nod.

“Just distract me,” she says, trying to sound, he knows, encouraging. “Just… please?”

Shifting so he’s only laying half on top of her, he gets a hand between them. Being on an air mattress (the floor would be almost better, to be honest, if it wasn’t the floor and if it Mac wasn’t as anxious as she already is) makes it more awkward than it should be. Gently, he brushes two fingers over the front of her cotton panties, stroking her through the fabric, remembering, somehow, that she likes a blunted sensation at first.

And likes to be kissed.

(Maybe that’s why they work well; they both like to keep their mouths occupied with talking, or other pursuits.)

She moans quietly when he palms his hand over her mound, bunches the fabric in his hand and pulls it taut for a few moments, before slipping his fingers under her panties and moving them to circle her clit. Lightly, at first, deliberately teasing, until she pulls her mouth from his to breathe through her building arousal. He presses down and holds it, to hear her moan louder.

“ _Will_.”

And he can’t see her anyway, so he closes his eyes and ducks his head to tongue her collarbones, rubbing her harder and harder until she starts to squirm, thighs trying to clamp down around his hand, moans rising and choking off in her efforts to keep quiet.   

He can smell her, sweat and perfume and sex, the filtered air long starting to go stale and now her office is going to smell like sex, he knows it, and knows they could get up to do this in her bathroom, but that feels like it would be so much more tawdry, more like a quick fuck, less like what it means, than here, in a facsimile of a bed.

(He’s going to have her between his sheets, as soon as the storm’s over.

In his bed, his kitchen, drawers in his dresser and space in his closet; let her clutter up his life again and he just wants to build their refuge from the oncoming storm.)

Sliding his fingers down to her entrance he realizes she's nowhere near wet enough, and grinds the heel of his hand down against her clit, the bundle of nerves and its legs, letting up and pressing back down in tight circles. He knows sex isn’t always about orgasm, he’s not fucking twelve, but he’s sure as fuck not about to _hurt her_. They have time. And if they don’t, then whatever. They can pick this up later, when he can get her naked and relaxed and pliant.

He goes slowly, until her legs open, trembling, before snapping shut again, and her cries grow ragged. Then tests her again, and eases in one finger to the knuckle, curves it slightly, and drags it forward until her legs open again, one kicking down uselessly and the other hooking behind his knee. Presses down the heel of his palm and up with his finger until MacKenzie throws back her head.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” she moans, nails scoring the skin on his back.

He barely pauses, kissing her bared throat. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah just—that, keep doing that.”

MacKenzie tenses again after that, and he can’t tell if it’s because she’s close or because the hurricane is starting to encroach in on her consciousness, so he winds up murmuring nonsense in her ear until her hips move fluidly again.

She responds, somewhat incoherently, voice strung taut.

“That’s it,” he urges, easing another finger into her folds before nudging her head back with his own so he has access to her throat again, feeling her cries where they begin with his mouth. And then bites down gently on her pulse, until she gasps, and then soothes the mark with his tongue.

Keeps going, feeling her slick against his palm, until he feels her muscles clamp down on his fingers. Hips jerking into his hand, she cries out, and then turns her face towards his. Keens out his name, a hand moving shakily from his back to his neck, and he takes the hint and kisses his way to her mouth. She sucks his tongue into her mouth while he coaxes her climax into lasting longer, easing off her clit but still pressing his fingers up into her until the rippling of her inner muscles tapers off into nothing.

When he removes his fingers from inside her, she whimpers, thighs moving restlessly, and he’s half caught off-guard when she pulls him to lie between her legs. “You don’t have to—”

She bites down on his lip, hard, pressing her knees in against his hips and effectively shutting him up.

(He can, sometimes, take a hint.)

Her hands come, minutes later, to his belt buckle, and he helps her get his jeans undone and down, kicking them off once they get down past his knees. Getting their underwear off is another joint effort.

Still, he wants to check in with her. He’s not stupid—sex may be a distraction, but it’s not going to cure Mac of her anxiety. Will thinks he’d give almost anything to be able to see her face right now, to be able to read more than her body language, trying to discern the meaning of how her limbs curl around his.

“Still okay?”  he asks, holding himself over her.

Her hands slow without tensing, coming up to frame his face. Voice quiet, but still loud enough (the wind is screaming without mercy, rain battering the windows without pause, and all the glass in this building just makes everything sound hollow) to be heard, she says softly but with certainty, “I’m fine.” And then laughs at herself, a little self-deprecatingly. “Not _fine_. I’m fine enough, with you. I think that’s the best I can do right now. So get back to distracting me, Billy.”

Cupping her jaw, he traces his thumb from her chin to her lips, before lowering his face to hers. “That I can do,” he murmurs, before kissing her again, gently.

She wraps her arms and legs around him--clinging to him, really, and he knows how _not fine_ she is, but he’s been _not fine_ for years, so he gets it. And he clung to worse than another person. (Her ways of coping are probably far healthier than his ever are.) He doesn’t quite manage to get her bra off, just pulls the cups down enough that he can circle her nipples with his thumbs while he begins to ride his hips along hers.

(This is probably going to be pitifully short. But both of them are incredibly sleep deprived and Mac still feels like she might vibrate out of her skin.)

He winds up rocking his hips into hers more than any actual thrusting—what with her legs wrapped so tightly around him, heels digging into his hamstrings, arms locked around his shoulders—which is probably for the best, considering that this air mattress probably isn’t load-rated for anything more intense than vigorous knitting.

When he’s finally inside her all he can do is bury his face in her hair, and groan, shivering, when she trails her fingertips lightly down the sides of his spine. MacKenzie, it would appear, hasn’t forgotten a goddamn thing, so he turns his head into her neck and bites at the apex of her jaw, near her ear, refusing to let up even once her nails bite into the small of his back. Only stops, soothing the mark with his tongue, when she pitches her hips up into his and cries out his name.

He chases her movements with his own, managing to brace his feet on the floor at the end of the air mattress rather on the thing itself, and it’s more of a sloppy, half-deliberate grind more than anything else. But either way, she’s pulling on his hair and has her face buried in his shoulder, so he has to be doing something right.

And _fuck_ does it feel right.

At this angle he can’t do much more than ride his lips along her cheekbone, supporting himself on one forearm while bracing his other hand under her, palming her ass, pulling her up against him.

Between his own breathing and the storm he has a hard time hearing her, muffled as her cries are against his shirt. And the hurricane is pretty fucking loud, or maybe his senses are just heightened, synapses firing again and again because he has MacKenzie under his hands for the first time in years, can taste her skin, breathe her in, every aspect of the moment stretched out and amplified.

Leveraging herself against him, she manages to move herself further down his body, and moans loud and in the clear ( _god_ , he really hopes everyone else is sleeping) when he tilts his hips down into hers and holds it until her thighs tremble. The delicate skin of her throat vibrates against his lips, and he feels rather than hears her this time, a loud whip of wind against the side of the building obscuring any noise but its own.

Feeling his own orgasm building in the base of his spine, and manages to get a hand between them, rubbing his thumb over her clit until she bites down on his shoulder and he feels her clenching down around him.

He thinks she manages to get his name out, and “I love you,” but can’t really hear her, and collapses half on top of her moments later, all motor function washed out of his muscles.

Her hair smells nice. Which he knows, because it’s spread out on the pillow and he has a faceful of it, until he manages to turn his head so he’s not quite breathing in her ear.

“Love you,” he says on a heavy exhale, before moving to roll to the side of her.

But she holds him to her. “You’re fine.”

“You’re just cold.”

Mac hums in response, guiding him to pillow his head on her chest. “You’re the one who took most of my clothes off.”

He trails a line of kisses down her sternum to the valley between her breasts, palming her hips as he slowly slides out of her. “I didn’t hear any complaints.” He moves to sit up to get her tissues or something from her bathroom, and smirks when she makes a noise of protest. “I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll put my clothes back on,” she threatens.

Will snorts, clamberng to his feet. “We’re going to have to.”

At some point the power _will_ go back on, and they _probably_ shouldn’t be caught naked from the waist down together.

“Promise me we can get naked soon,” she says, while he tries to feel his way to her desk. His fingers skim the polished desktop and he focuses on getting to her bathroom. “Preferably with lights on.”

“Definitely with lights on.”

Not that that’s going to be anytime in the next few days. But then after, if Leona accepts their resignations… Will can imagine a lot of lazy mornings in bed and a lot of afternoons of him trying to re-arrange his stock portfolio to make up for the sudden loss in “earning a salary.” Not that doing that requires clothing, explicitly.

Although he knows that Mac would never be happy just lounging around his apartment as his doxy.

There’s a ring in his desk drawer, so… that’s not much of a concern, either.

Well, he thinks, frowning. She has to say yes. He rushed into things the last time around and she wasn’t ready and he knows how _that_ ended. But they can broach the subject at a more appropriate time, like when it isn’t five in the morning and they’re a hairs-breadth from losing their jobs, credibility, and reputations.

And when she isn’t freaking the fuck out, although he has to get a new gauge on that.

“Don’t trip,” she says with a snort. “I need you intact for broadcast.”

“And for other things?” he asks, swiping the box of tissues off the back of the toilet and cleaning himself off before finding his way back to her.

“Yes, and _for other things_.”

He manages to somewhat gracefully sit back down on the air mattress to hand her the tissue box before locating his boxers and getting them back on, and then his jeans. And then helps Mac with her own pants, lingering probably a little too long over the zipper of her trousers.

When she bats his hands away, he slips his fingers under her shirt, frowning when he finds another layer of clothing than expected, his sweatshirt. And then he fans his fingers out, sliding his palms up her stomach, pausing when his fingertips brush the bottoms of her breasts, unimpeded.

_Well then._

“We should _sleep_ , Will,” she chides him, fondly, or so he thinks, tugging him down so she can curl up into his side. “You’ve already distracted me enough.”

He turns so he can wrap his arms around her and pull her half on top of him, after tugging the sleeping bag up to cover them, and buries his hands under her shirt.

“Have I?”

(That’s half teasing, half a serious question, since she was veritably shaking herself out of her skin when he found her. He sets to trying to massage the residual tension out of her back and thighs.)

She nods, pressing a kiss to whatever skin she finds under her lips—his neck. “I love you, Will.”

“You said. A few times,” he answers, shifting so her head is pillowed against the inside of his arm, wrapping his free arm around her when she rolls onto her stomach, her head tucked up underneath his chin. He presses a kiss into her hair, tightening his arm around her.

“Shut up,” she murmurs drowsily, before biting his bicep in retaliation. “Don’t think I forgot that you said that I own you.”

“I told you that on your first day here,” he sighs.

“Will—”

Okay, she forced him to admit it thirty seconds before broadcast, but the point still stands. “You own me,” he says. “Period, the end.” He kisses the top of her head again, for longer. She makes him feel saner. He hopes he can do the same for her. “I never stopped loving you.”

“ _Will._ ”

That’s a conversation they can have in the morning, though. Not when she’s exhausted and dosed and half-asleep.

“Go to sleep, MacKenzie.”

Surprisingly, she doesn’t fight him. Just nods, kisses his arm, and settles against him. He feels it when she falls asleep minutes later, limbs relaxing into his, breathing evening out, and he follows her shortly after.

 

* * *

 

It’s Tess who finds them first, once the generators start working and the power comes back on. The lights wake up anyone sleeping in an open area, or not under a table, and then the sound of dozens of iNews alerts going off ring through bullpen, and she drags herself out of a tangle of blankets to see what Mac needs her to do.

So do about six other people, but she gets there first, standing with her nose almost pressed against the glass of Mac’s door.

“Oh my god,” she whispers, turning to look at Maggie. “Is his hand on her ass?”

Maggie’s face is a carefully-sculpted mask of non-reaction, when she points at the article of clothing stuffed half under the air mattress that their bosses are lying on in a not-so-platonic fashion. “Can’t really tell, but I’m pretty sure _that_ is her bra.” Maggie frowns, trying not to smile. “Do we wake them?”

“No,” Tamara answers immediately. “If they know we know it might get undid, and we’re stuck here for at least another two days. We say nothing.”

“So…” Tess asks, trying to crane her neck to get a better view of their sleeping bosses, half covered by a navy sleeping bag. “His hand is _definitely_ on her ass, and I think she’s wearing the sweatshirt he had on last night. And I think she’s drooling on him, but that’s neither here nor there.”

“He has his face buried in her hair,” Neal adds, standing on his tip-toes behind them.

“Definitely not platonic,” Tamara says, before frowning thoughtfully. “Not that they’ve ever really been, you know, platonic.”

“They _so_ did it,” Tess murmurs.

A male voice from behind startles them all. “Did what?”

“Hi… Jim,” Maggie finally says, watching his face carefully for when he finally looks into Mac’s office. Well, looks at the floor in Mac’s office.

“Is Mac sleeping?” he asks, scrolling through his email on his phone.

Tamara opens and closes her mouth around several possible answers. “Um… yes.”

For a moment, it looks like Jim is about to sweep right through the closed door and into Mac’s office, but he takes his eyes away from his BlackBerry at the last second.

“Um wha—? Oh.” He comes to a sudden halt, staring wide-eyed at Will and Mac curled together on the air mattress on the floor. “That’s…”

“Not platonic,” Tamara reiterates.

“Well… it’s probably not the most unprofessional thing they’ve done in the office,” Jim says, half-exasperated, before something they said earlier pings back onto his mental radar. “Wait, _did it_?”

Maggie bites her lip, watching as Tess explains, a little too excitedly if Maggie didn’t already know that this is one of her weeks in the office pool, “that’s her bra. And his sweatshirt, on her. And I think that’s a hickey on her neck, but it could be a shadow—”

“No it’s a hickey,” Tamara confirms, pretty certain of her observation. “He has one too, where his tee-shirt collar is stretched down a bit. And the tissues—”

Jim blanches. “Oh god, we don’t need to be doing this—let’s just--no, conference room. Now.”

“It’s like he’s never had sex before,” Maggie says, following a snort, chasing him towards the conference room and away from Will and Mac and their questionable blackout activities.

“He’s squicked ‘cause _mom and dad_ had sex,” Neal chimes in.

Jim squawks, flapping an arm towards them indignation. “I’m not— _CONFERENCE ROOM._ ”

“Shut up! You’ll wake them!” Tess scolds, staying behind to take a picture of the sleeping pair on her phone before catching up with them.

(“For the scrapbook,” she confers with Tamara, who nods. Maggie takes a look at the picture—pretty cute, and Tess had the sense to angle it so you couldn’t see the bra, all in good taste.)

“Oh my god,” Jim finally says, throwing up his hands, before looking around wildly. “Just—someone put together the book! And put on a pot of coffee. And find me some bleach to pour into my eyes.”

“And drop something loud outside Mac’s office?” Maggie asks, smiling in a way that is entirely self-indulgent.

The only response she gets is a helpless whine.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
